R devel - Jul 2021 - Feature request: Change default library path on Windows

Thanks Ben. I just sent a request for a bugzilla login.
Jeroen chimed in earlier in support.

Cheers,
Steve

On 7/26/21 1:44 AM, Steve Haroz wrote:
> Thanks Ben. I just sent a request for a bugzilla login.
> Jeroen chimed in earlier in support.
Please note this has been reported, discussed and considered already, 
last time in PR#17842 (though proposing a different replacement for the 
default).

I think changing the default from user documents to something else would 
make sense to consider together with some other breaking change for 
users, not in isolation, if at all. While the change may help users with 
a quota on the documents directory (e.g. shared on a cloud, backup, 
etc), it will make it harder to find the library for others, who would 
not notice the change to the documented behavior, and I assume that 
would still be a much larger group.

Of course it does not help that it is not clear what the correct 
location should be now, and certainly there is little hope it won't 
change again, soon. My understanding is that the choice was originally 
correct when made, following the Microsoft guidelines.

As discussed here as well, users may choose their own library path 
(?.libPaths).

The installation location for R itself can be changed e.g. via /DIR 
option of the installer (see /?). This is useful e.g. when installing R 
only for the current user (/CURRENTUSER) and it impacts also the 
location of the library - it is then inside the given tree.

Best
Tomas


>
> Cheers,
> Steve
>
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